Puigcerdà, Girona. Spain

Hospital of the Cerdanya Region

Manuel Brullet + Albert de Pineda

Description

Technical file

This building, intended for a cross-border hospital and given formal shape by its clinical and environmental needs, intelligently addresses the design of its volumetry according to the needs set out by the sector’s urban development plan.
The new Hospital of La Cerdanya region is currently situated on the outskirts of the town of Puigcerdà within the new urban development plan characterised by strong urban density. The site is at a height of 1,200 m above sea level and slopes strongly towards the north.
The hospital building has been sited fully to the north of the site to obtain a large free space by the building’s south façade, thus avoiding the shadow thrown by the five-storey block of flats situated across from the hospital.
This great tree-lined plaza is located at the end of the urban boulevard that links the current nucleus of Puigcerdà with the new planned extension of the town. The plaza is the end space of the boulevard and operates as an urban vestibule to the new hospital building. The tall installations tower helps to define the end of the boulevard’s perspective and acts as an urban landmark. The hospital plaza connected to the central green zone proposed by the new urban plan creates a large green space as part of the nucleus of the new planned enlargement.
For urban development, sustainability and functional reasons, the hospital building becomes a single compact volume in which a series of interior courtyards allow for all rooms to be flooded in daylight. This volume, with a trapezoid section, is characterised by a single-slope roof running along the building from south to north, adapting to the geometry of the streets at the back of the plaza and linking the hospital with the nearby dwellings in terms of composition.
The project has been designed to be compact and to face south in order to optimise energy efficiency. From an environmental point of view, the general strategy was to use materials that entail the least environmental impact in their manufacture, assembly or application.